AHAA-sponsored Session at the 108th CAA Annual Conference

Session chair: Annelise K. Madsen, Art Institute of Chicago

"Votes for Women: American Women Artists and Strategies for Inclusion"

On the one-hundredth anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, this session examines the place of women artists in inclusive histories of American art. It aims to reevaluate the various strategies that we as scholars, academics, and curators have employed to expand the canon, alter existing narratives, and conceive new structures for understanding who matters and why in the field. The separatist approach—telling women’s histories—has long fomented debate over whether such work is essential or essentializing. Moreover, separatist and recuperative discourses have often served to further marginalize women artists of color. As a corrective, recent scholarly studies on an underrepresented “sisterhood” of artists have modeled inclusive visions of historical American art, giving due consideration to individuals, communities, and the various contexts—political, racial, economic, and cultural—that shaped female artists’ practices and the reception of their works. Other projects have shifted or disrupted accepted narratives so that women artists regain their integral roles. This session seeks papers that examine the defining contributions of women artists in inclusive histories of American art. Papers that address the relationship between historical and ongoing mechanisms of exclusion, and that consider practical questions—such as how we write scholarship, frame exhibitions, make museum acquisitions, and teach courses—through the lens of a particular artist or case study are encouraged. AHAA seeks to include diverse perspectives and voices and we invite paper topics that explore underrepresented artists.